Candidates Court Teachers

Teachers could have a lot influence in Georgia’s gubernatorial elections this year and candidates are paying attention.

With increased class sizes and teacher layoffs in the coming school year and cuts to education programs teachers could be a decisive voting block in the July 20th primary election.

The Georgia Association of Educators represents 46 thousand teachers. Its president Jeff Hubbard says the Perdue administration has failed them.

“It’s been an extremely tough 8 years and what the voters of Georgia will have to ask themselves is 'Are be better off in public education that we were 8 years ago?' And the answer is a resounding 'No', Hubbard says.”

Angry teachers are credited with voting Former Governor Roy Barnes out of office. Now Barnes publicly admits on his campaign site that he failed to listen to them and vowed to change that.

A scan of campaign websites shows that Republicans Karen Handel and Eric Johnson and Democrat David Poythress put education as their second priority. And Democrat Dubose Porter made Education his top Georgia issue.